Chương 54: Chapter 131: Training

The days gradually went by more and more smoothly once they got a handle on the monsters, which seemed unending at first. The teeming life of the jungle slowly ran out of surprises. Never completely out of surprises… but less. Taking the extra time to level the civilians kept them much safer than they might've otherwise been, and had fringe benefits. The food got better, with Badur's preservation Ability allowing them to add more meat to the menu and stretch their stores even further.

As they gained levels, less civilians could handle more and more work, allowing the setup and takedown of camp to happen in a matter of moments. Fixes to caravan wheels or the dreaded broken axle were done in minutes, rather than bringing the entire caravan to a halt for an entire afternoon. Will got used to the sight of most of the carpenters sitting around chatting while one lifted an entire wagon, another underneath the wood box on wheels, mending something or other with an active Ability.

The earth mages added a significant amount of volume to what they could control, allowing them to flatten a larger radius around the camp. They also used their extra Dailies to create earth works: short walls that Ria could man, creating just a little bit of extra protection against the outside. More than anything, the walls hid the light of the campfire from monsters who might be drawn to it, which was plenty helpful.

The water mages didn't really get the opportunity to shine, seeing as they didn't need any extra water, but Will suspected they would be seeing the benefits of their levels once they reached the next desert Floor. While the caravan was forming a cohesive group, Will ranged ahead of them, Checking Loth's traps, eliminating monsters unsuited for civilian powerleveling, looking for any signs that other Climbers might be staging an ambush.

Even with all that, he had plenty of free time, and most of it was spent practicing new applications of Phantom Hand and Aspect of the Immortal Serpent with a focus on integrating them into his fighting style. Focus 123 ->109 A nail hissed out and drove itself deep into the wood of nearby tree as Will sprinted through the air, coming to a sliding stop midair in the center of a clearing, picturing himself chased by the teleporting ranger that had given him so much trouble.

Focus 109 -> 123 Will dismissed the carpenter's nail and his Focus popped back up, then promptly dropped back down as he created copy of a shortsword in his off hand, warding off an imaginary attack while throwing his tomahawk with the other. The axe buried itself in a tree in the distance while Will kicked a shockwave through the air to blast arrows off course.

Will flipped upside down and kicked off the air above him and went to ground in the blink of an eye, winding through the brush as he retrieved the tomahawk with one Phantom Snake while two more unleashed their own carpenter's nails to cover the one retrieving the axe, preventing his imaginary opponent from seizing on the opportunity to steal it from him or damage the eidolon.

Focus 109 -> 81 Will dismissed the two phantom nails and shortsword as the axe flew back into his hand, warding off a feral strike from an imaginary berserker in the process. Focus 81 ->123 Will continued the fight with varying levels of intensity for hours, giving Abilities to his opponent that he hadn't personally witnessed, but suspected they had, keeping them as fast or faster than him, always testing himself through new scenarios. What if? What if?

Will was fighting in tandem with Loth in his imagination when his imaginary ranger opponent tricked him into shooting a nail at Loth using portals. A surge of panic flooded Will's body and he reflexively grasped the air with one of the snakes near imaginary Loth. A wall of air solidified in front of her, which the carpenter's nail struck with overwhelming force, cracking the makeshift shield with an audible noise, burying itself into the tree that served as his imaginary Loth. But not as deep as it could've.

I can do that!? It stood to reason. He could create flat platforms to stand on. Why not a vertical shield? It wasn't… exceptionally strong, but it was quick, free, and invisible. What if I… Will shot another nail at the tree, his Phantom Snake grabbing the air and yanking it to the side. It was a complex action because he had to stamp basically everything except for the nail with the 'not terrain' label. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. But it worked.

Dragged by the suddenly thick air it was embedded in, The nail veered off to the side, carving a furrow in the side of the tree before tumbling off somewhere. Will dismissed it. Will tried again, this time grabbing the air and shoving it violently forward in the opposite direction of the nail, intending to kill it's momentum by applying more direct force against the projectile. BOOOM! The nail cut through the extra stiff air and again… buried itself in the tree, regardless of Will's intent to block it.

The brush and trees on the receiving end of a wall of solidified air on the other hand, had been knocked flat, creating an echoing rumble that would surely be heard all the way back at the caravan. They probably thought Will was fighting some kaiju or something. He was probably going to have to apologize for worrying Anna. Whoops… well, back to practicing.

Will dragged his foot forward through the air, grabbing a bit of it with his Ability and trying to create a spike of air that followed the trajectory of his foot, letting go and then moving his foot out of the way to allow the spike to continue on. Crunch. The solidified air made a scuff-mark on the bark of the tree, but it had nowhere near the penetrative power of his phantom items. Even boosted over fifty times, there was only so much power you could get out of air.

Could be useful for a quick, distracting punch to the nose or groin, Will mused to himself, practicing the move again and again, never quite making the 'spike' sharp. He didn't make much headway with the move until he hunted another shadowcat and was plucking a stray claw out of a nearby tree when he noted the way it was composed, with an exterior layer, dulled by frequent use, and a small, sharp inner layer, ready to make itself known as soon at the outer layer sloughed off.

In fact, the claw was in the midst of doing so and Will peeled the outer layer away, revealing a fine point that could have ripped him apart if it had caught his skin. An idea shot through his mind like a thunderbolt. Can I make layers? If he could find a way to sacrifice a dull, crumbly outer layer in exchange for reinforcing a smaller inner layer to a higher degree, it might be able to punch through things to deal real damage to his targets.

Will immediately began practicing it, and at first he couldn't quite grasp the mental image required to make any of the layering happen. This went on for some time until he had the idea to introduce stress. Like bending the living branch of a tree, one side would compress while the other side would tear apart, eventually snapping. Will stood on living tree branches far too small to support him all the time. Will practiced adding a feeling of stress to the move.

He had already gotten the hang of tricking Aspect of the Serpent that he needed those footholds in that specific shape. Now he needed to convince Aspect that it needed to be reinforced in a certain pattern to avoid dropping him. As if he were expecting to receive a sudden weight shoving him to the side, Will convinced the air that it needed to be able to take a weight applying a bending force… Crack! What was that? After hundreds of attempts, Will heard something different.

He inspected the tree and spotted a line of damage on the bark about half the length of his finger. A line of damage instead of a blunt scuff against the bark. It pierced maybe a fingernail's depth into the bark. Enough to make a nonlethal cut on a baseline human. I wish I could see the damn thing, Will mused. This was like learning how to read and write while blind. Not impossible but slow and frustrating. … Why don't you just make it so you can see it?

Will then spent the evening kicking the air above a small fire that he kept fed with young branches, creating a billowing cloud of smoke. Snag some air… manipulate that feeling of tension… where the stress will be highest. Create layers… Will kicked through the smoke cloud, grabbing a chunk of it. The block of smoke shot forward, Will watching carefully as the leading edge sloughed off as it traveled through the air, revealing a sharper section buried just under the surface an instant before it impacted the tree.

Crack! About one knuckle deep, Will thought, measuring it. Enough to make serious lacerations on a pre-system human, and a nonlethal one on a Climber. Three knuckles deep in hardwood was enough for it to start being truly dangerous to another Climber. Will went back to the fire and noted that the smoke from the fire was thinning out. He sighed and turned to find some green branches, spotting one of Brenna's younger daughters carrying an armful of green wood, perfect for making smoke.

"Milord," She mumbled, bowing and adding them to the fire before leaving. In the distance, Will could see three other civilians had decided to gather green wood for him. I didn't ask for them to do that… It was a strange feeling, when your actions began dragging people along behind them, like the wake of a boat.

"Thank you." Will said, resuming his practice. He'd successfully driven the smoke into the wood to nearly the second knuckle, but he was running into the hard limits of what Aspect could do with air when he heard Mason arrive from the caravan. Everyone had a distinct chest, which led to distinct breathing sounds. A year ago, if someone had told him that he could distinguish people by their breathing, Will would've scoffed.

If they'd told him he could tell where they were by the change in temperature on his skin, he would've laughed in their face. But here we are.

"Not very powerful is it?" Mason asked as he arrived beside Will.

"No, but it's free."

"Ah. Yes. free is good." Mason created a bead of fire that danced on the tips of his fingers before flicking it forward, searing three knuckles into the wood, his cantrip leaving a deep scorch mark right beside Will's. Mocking his progress. Will raised an eyebrow.

"What?" Mason asked with a smirk. Will stomped on the ground, applying the layering and stress techniques he'd been practicing on air. Earth was much less slippery. Much more solid. A ripple of earth coalesced into a man-length spear that shot forward and pierced through the tree, erupting out the back in a shower of wood shrapnel and causing the entire tree to split in half. Mason was pale, studying the spike of hardened earth slowly crumbling as Will's Ability released it. Or maybe he wasn't pale.

It was hard to tell with the way the light bounced off Mason's skin.

"Showoff."

"What did you want?" Will asked.

"Practice." Mason said. Will turned to face him fully.

"We've been on standby for nearly a week." Mason explained, motioning to the rest of Will's Party.

"The other Parties we brought have gained levels and Relics, and generally gotten accustomed to the Floor. There's not much for us to do now. So we need some practice to stay sharp. We're about to go into another Lord's territory after all."

"What kind of practice did you want?" Will asked. Mason looked Will from head to toe.

"Hunting something dangerous." Will felt a smile blooming on his face.

"That could be arranged."